Fundraising Effort Started for Idaho Veteran and His Dog

BOISE, Idaho (KLIX) – A war veteran is doing all he can to save his service dog that recently was shot after the pet wandered into a neighbor’s yard.

Through a fundraising effort, Dustin Johns hopes he can have the means to pay for the rising bills associated with treatment for his best friend.

After 14 years of serving his country, Johns, a combat veteran from Boise, came to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was angry a lot of the time, and never felt much like his old self. To help home adjust to civilian life, Johns bought a service dog and named him Frag.

"Somehow it worked,” Johns told KIVI-TV. “That dog knows when I need him right next to me.”

Recently, however, Frag had wondered into a neighbor’s yard and was shot.

John Gomez/ThinkStock

The neighbor told the news station that Frag had tried getting into his chicken coop, and so he shot the dog with a shotgun. Pellets sprayed the dog’s body, and when Johns found him he rushed his canine friend to a veterinarian where emergency surgery was performed.

According to the GoFundMe account, doctors had to remove Frag’s spleen and repaired part of his intestines.